The Island of Wolves

by Elizabeth Avery

I placed my hand on his arm. “I’m sorry for reacting badly. I don’t care what you’re selling or to who or why. If the Silkweed is safe, then take some.”

  Conon sighed and squeezed open the packet, pouring it into his tankard. “I am going to be off my ass.”

  “I won’t let you do anything stupid,” said Risk.

  “Right.” Conon didn’t sound too convinced, but he tossed his drink back regardless, and made a face. “Gods, they weren’t kidding when they said no alcohol.”

  I looked down at my own tankard. I wasn’t much of a drinker beyond the occasional glass of wine or champagne at a social event, and I was far from the party girl. But that didn’t stop me from draining my cup and calling for seconds from the guy manning the kegs. In the last 24 hours, I’d nearly been eaten by trolls, ripped apart by reanimated skeletons, ran until I thought my heart would burst out of my chest, almost burned alive in a lava flow, and thrown off a cliff. Damnit, I was going to drink.

  Chapter 20:

  The Arrival

  Somewhere, a wolf howls. Above me, Lunaris hangs blood red in a grayscale sky. I can hear someone barely breathing. Each drag of air is a painful, rattling gurgle. Beneath my feet, the earth cracks open, and a pallid, decaying hand grabs my ankle. I fall backwards and a corpse dripping thick green fluid claws its way up out of a shallow grave. It crawls towards me, and the stench makes my eyes water.

  Give it back, the corpse wheezes as it crawls up my frozen body. You must give it back!

  I don’t have it! I want to scream, but my tongue refuses to move. All I can manage is a terrified moan.

  Slimy fingers claw at my chest, ripping my nightie, and wrapping around my throat.

  The wolves are lost! You must give it back!

  The tide is rising, icy water pouring out of the corpse’s grave. I am being pulled down, closer to the gaping hole.

  I can’t breathe, can’t think. My skin is turning grey, becoming soft, and sliding off my bones where the corpse’s hands paw at me. I try to pull them off, pushing the thing away from me.

  The corpse flies back into the overflowing hole, and for a second I see my own screaming face before it vanishes beneath into the icy depths.

  I woke with a start, my heart hammering painfully against my ribcage. I’d broken out in a cold sweat, and felt clammy all over. Like a corpse. The image of my own rotting body flashed through my mind once again, and I lunged for the blanket to wipe myself clean.

  Slowly, my breathing returned to normal. Where had that come from? I’d had nightmares before, of course, but never anything like that.

  A gentle chirping sound made me look up. Eleanor was curled at the bottom of my bunk, head up, staring at me curiously. I forced myself to smile.

  “I’m alright,” I said as reassuringly as I could. “Go back to sleep.”

  The baby yawned cutely, then tucked its head under its tail. A few minutes later, its chest was rising and falling evenly with sleep.

  I sighed in relief.

  Then I heard it: a pained groan from somewhere outside the room. It was muffled through the wall, but I recognised it immediately.

  I leapt out of bed and staggered, head pounding. Why had I had so much to drink last night? I didn’t even remember getting back to the cabin or going to bed.

  “I wouldn’t,” said Risk, making me jump.

  The shifter was lying on his bunk with his head resting on his folded hands. He was staring intently at the ceiling, and when the next muffled cry was heard, he looked like he was doing all he could to ignore it.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Just leave it,” he said. “You don’t want to know what’s going on.”

  “But it’s Conon.”

  “I know.”

  Anger flared in me. Doesn’t it matter if it’s him?

  “I’m going,” I said stiffly, and left the room.

  Harmon was standing right outside my door, arms folded, and looking unconcerned.

  “Morning,” he said, though it was still dark outside the ship’s portholes.

  “Where is he?” I demanded.

  “Galley,” he replied, jerking his head down the corridor.

  I followed the sounds to the open door, hesitating, my heart pounding. A fresh cry of pain made me shake it off and step into the room.

  Conon was lying on his stomach on one of the tables with six people holding him down. One on each limb, one sitting on his back pushing on his shoulders, and one holding his head still.

  Theron was kneeling beside Conon’s head, trimming the edges of his broken horn with what looked like hoof clippers. There was a wooden bowl underneath full of blood-stained bone shards. The bull’s hands were tightly clenched, and he grunted every time the clippers removed another shard of horn.

  It was sweltering in the room, and I didn’t find out why until the navigator was finished with the clippers. He put them aside, and the clatter of metal on metal suggested there was a tray or bucket of some kind just out of sight under the table. He put on a pair of heavy suede gloves, and the minotaur holding Conon’s head tightened his grip.

  “Alright, let’s do this,” said Theron.

  There was a hissing sound, and the navigator lifted a piece of flat iron attached to a leather-wrapped handle. There must have been a fire or something I couldn’t see, because the metal was glowing a dull orange. That would explain the heat too.

  I gasped, and Theron looked up, his eyes meeting mine. On the table, Conon tensed.

  Theron frowned. “Skeever, you rat, get out of here you’re distracting me!”

  There was a creak of timber as Skeever slid off a stool in the corner. He hurried to the door, grabbing my wrist as he passed. The look in his eyes was deadly serious, and it kept me quiet as he pulled me out of the room and up the hall. The scream of agony that followed us made me want to throw up.

  Up on deck, Skeever finally released me.

  “What was that?” I demanded. “What were they doing to him?”

  “Surgery,” said Skeever bluntly.

  “That was surgery?” I exclaimed.

  The Dirka shrugged. “Primitive, maybe, but sometimes, all you can do with a lost limb is cauterize it and watch for infection.”

  “I didn’t realize Theron was a doctor as well,” I said. “I thought he was the navigator.”

  “He is the navigator,” he said. “But it’s like, at least with the clipping, well, you don’t need a medical degree to trim your nails right?”

  “Then why was he the one doing it? You’re telling me you’ve got a crew this big, out on the ocean for weeks at a time, and you don’t have a doctor?”

  “We had one, until recently,” he said, scratching nervously at the back of his neck. “Remember me saying we’d had a brig full of people before, you know, the snake?”

  I did. He’d sounded almost gleeful at the idea of them having died is such a brutal way. Sometimes, Skeever seemed like he was two different people. One malicious and sadistic, delighting in the pain or others, and the other reserved and dejected, seemingly pessimistic about everything. If one of them was just an act, I couldn’t tell which one.

  “I’d assumed they were…” I trailed off. I didn’t want to say slaves aloud, didn’t want to admit I’d thought they’d been traffickers and had still said nothing about it.

  “No, no, nothing like that,” he said shaking his head. “We’ve been having, interpersonal trouble on board for a while. It came to a head just before we arrived in Pheras.”

  Interpersonal trouble?

  “A mutiny?”

  “Yeah, or at least an attempted one.”

  “But why the brig?” I asked confused. “Why not just kill them?”

  “‘Cause the uprising failed so spectacularly, it was laughable,” he said. “And the captain’s more of a decent guy than you give him credit for. There’s more now, but the bulls used to be the minority on the ship. We still have more than your average, due to the fact all the highest ranking on the sh
ip are otherkin. Guess they felt safe here. But, there was still more humans, and it was them who wanted to unseat the captain.”

  “Was it racial?”

  “Nah, nothing like that. Everyone’s tensions were high because of all the sabotage. They were angry that the captain wasn’t doing more to find whoever it was. But they underestimated one thing: the minotaurs. There was a vote to kick the captain, and usually in those things everyone votes as an individual based on conscience, no judgments. But…”

  “The minotaur are a clan.”

  “Yep, so they voted as a block whichever way Conon did, and he chose to stick with the captain. Of course, that ended up being his undoing, as their leader anyway.”

  “So it ended peacefully?”

  “Pretty much, it could have still gotten violent, but with all the minotaurs on the other team, the mutineers decided to surrender. The plan was to have them wait in the brig until we reached Nyuesi, then the captain’d let them go. No hard feelings.”

  And then we got shipwrecked, I thought. And all those people…

  “So the doctor had been one of the mutineers then?”

  “Yeah, fuckin’ waste, isn’t it?”

  “What would you have done afterwards? Recruited more crew members?”

  “Nah,” said Skeever. “This was going to be their last trip anyway, maybe that’s why cap was so easy about it.”

  I looked over at Skeever, and he was staring out at the ocean, a resigned expression on his face. He’d said theirs, not ours…

  “Skeever—”

  I didn’t get to finish my question, though, as Conon stomped up onto the deck, loudly slurring my name. He was leaning against the doorway, eyes unfocused.

  The end of his broken horn was burnt black. It looked painful, but at least it was no longer bleeding. He staggered, still clearly under the effects of the drugs, and when he dropped to his knees, I rushed to his side.

  “You think I’m stupid?” He slurred, pointing at Skeever. “You think I didn’t know she was there?”

  “She wasn’t supposed to be,” said Skeever quickly.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make things hard for you. I guess I’m just a light sleeper. Harmon told me where to go.”

  Skeever made a disgusted sound with his teeth. “He was supposed to keep you in your cabin.”

  From the beginning, I had never really liked Harmon, but in that moment, I hated him. As if getting Conon so badly hurt in the first place wasn’t bad enough.

  I took Conon’s face in my hands. “Conon I—”

  “Whoa, I’m out,” said Skeever, throwing up his hands and heading for the stairs. “You lovebirds have your fun.”

  I laughed as I watched him leave, but my attention was dragged back to Conon when the bull covered my hands with his. He looked like he was ready to pass out, but he shook his head before I could say anything.

  “Look, I don’t know how much more I got in me, so let me say it, alright? I’m probably not gonna remember any of this come morning, and I suppose that makes me a coward but…” he took a deep breath. “I really care about you, alright? It scares me how much, and I don’t know why. Humans and minotaurs aren’t supposed to go together, but from the second you smiled back at me, I thought, ‘yeah I could make something with this one.’ Fuck.” He slumped against the wall.

  “It’s alright, don’t push yourself—”

  He shook his head, his brow furrowing as he tried to concentrate. “Just let me say this. Please? I’m sorry… for… for all my shit. For treating you like some kind of… I don’t know. Like you were some weakling, or something.” He looked up at me, with glassy, red eyes. “I just wanted you to be safe.”

  “I know,” I said softly.

  And I did know, I did. As much as it had frustrated me, I could tell that Conon had been struggling with something deeper than just us being on a dangerous island. I still didn’t know his past, the life he’d had before the short week we’d known each other. I wanted to know, but I wasn’t going to ask. I trusted one day, he’d be comfortable talking to me.

  I sat down next to him, and snuggled into his side. If Conon was going to fall asleep here and now, I was going to stay with him. There was no way I’d be able to carry him back downstairs, and there was definitely no way I was leaving him alone on deck.

  Conon was snoring within minutes of me cuddling up to him. I wasn’t sure whether it was the lingering alcohol in my system, or the gentle rocking of the ship beneath us, but it seemed like I’d barely closed my eyes before it was morning.

  I woke to the noise of a full deck, crew walking up and down, attending their duties and complaining about their hangovers. It made sense that, that would have woken me up but then I realised there was a long shadow over me, blocking out the sun.

  “Did the lovebirds have a good sleep?”

  I groaned, recognising the voice, and tried to burrow further into Conon’s side.

  Harmon laughed loudly, and the bull beside me stirred. He opened a pair of bloodshot eyes, looking, like a man who’d just come off a heavy weeksend bender.

  “What do you want?” he rumbled, slowly sitting up.

  “Nothing,” Harmon shrugged. “Just thought your woman would want to know that we’ll be arriving in Kharu around sundown.”

  “Thank you,” I said politely.

  “Now fuck off,” said Conon, less politely.

  Harmon folded his arms. “That’s not very nice.”

  “Not in a very nice mood.”

  Conon got up and went over to the water keg Risk had been using the previous night. With no preamble, he punched a hole in the top, and dunked his face in. He came back up a second later, and shook the water off.

  I went to his side. “How are you feeling?”

  “Like shit,” he said bluntly, but gave me a smile. “But I’ll get over it.”

  “You should take it easy until you’re better.” When he looked evasive, I frowned. “I mean it!”

  “I’ll try.”

  Harmon scoffed and I rolled my eyes.

  Conon turned to him. “You got a problem?”

  The splotchy minotaur shrugged. “Just enjoying seeing you whipped.”

  “You should learn to hide your jealousy better.”

  “Pfft, I don’t need a human dick sheath.”

  Conon made to step forward, but I grabbed his arm. “It’s fine. Don’t waste your time stooping to his level. He’s only picking a fight because he knows you’re hurt.”

  “I kicked his ass on the island. I can do it again,” said Harmon. “Although I suppose you enjoyed our time there, didn’t you? All that private time you got, disappearing to play with your woman? Must have felt like a vacation.”

  “I’ll be happy to never see that place again as long as I live,” said Conon, and I privately agreed.

  “I dunno,” said Harmon, scratching his chin. “Might have been nice to get out of there with a souvenir. Something to remember it by?”

  It was your want of a souvenir that nearly got us killed, I thought scathingly.

  “I’ll pass, thanks,” said Conon.

  “Well, I did manage to trip over this on our way out.” Harmon reached into the pocket of his shorts and pulled out one of the gemstones from the temple. “So guess I end up with a little something after—”

  Without skipping a beat, Conon snatched the gem from Harmon’s hand and lobbed it as hard as he could over the side of the ship. It landed in the ocean with a splash, and sank out of sight.

  “Hey—”

  Conon whirled around, a furious scowl on his face. “Have you not got a single functioning brain cell in that FUCKING head of yours?”

  He stalked forward, and Harmon flinched, and stumbled back. I was sure if either of them had been wearing a shirt, Conon would have grabbed Harmon by the collar. Instead, his hand came up to grab one of the other minotaur’s horn, dragging him down like the stereotypical mother with the earlobe of a naughty child.

  As so
on as Conon had turned on Harmon, the other minotaur on deck had jumped to their feet. They watched Conon man-handle their chief, fists clenched and waiting. No one had drawn their weapons yet, but the tension in the air was clear on every face.

  “What is wrong with you?” Conon screamed in Harmon’s face. “You nearly got your head bitten off by that monster, a monster who chased us down a fucking exploding mountain, all because you tried to take its gem.”

  “What’s the big deal? That thing got drowned in lava—”

  “You don’t know that for sure! It got half its skull blown off, and still managed to crawl after us, and you thought it was a good idea to bring the thing it wants onto the ship? Are you trying to get everyone killed?”

  Harmon’s eyes narrowed, and he slapped Conon’s hand away. “Who do you think you are, huh? You’re just a tired old bull who lost his place on top. You’re not the chief anymore!”

  “I’m aware of that,” said Conon simply.

  “Then why do you keep treating me like you are! Ordering me around and thinking you’re better than me!”

  “I don’t think I’m better than you,” Conon growled. “I have more experience. You can’t just do whatever you want anymore. You have to actually think about the consequences of your actions.

  “What did you think was going to happen huh?” he demanded. “That you would throw me out of the ring, and then all the power and respect you’d been fantasising about would just be gift wrapped and handed to you on a silver platter? Is that it? Because it doesn’t WORK that way! Those things have to be EARNED, even after you’ve locked horns.” He flung an arm out to indicate the tensely watching minotaurs. “You have a responsibility to put them first. That’s what a chief does!”

  “Then why were you blowing us off to get your dick wet in some human girl?” snapped Harmon.

  “Because I’m a tired old bull, just like you said,” sighed Conon, his rage softening. “I will make no excuses for my behaviour, but I don’t regret them. I suppose that fact alone is proof that it was my time to step down.”

  “Step down! I beat you!”

  “Toro yielded to you,” said Theron softly.

  “Excuse me! Who invited you into this conversation?” snarled Harmon, rounding on the navigator. “And what the fuck does it matter. I WON!”